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Fundamentalistic
rage in secular Kashmir
Romeet
K WATT
Much
water has flown under the bridge, and it is a heart-rending
incongruity that the Kashmir Valley, long celebrated as Rishivaer
or Garden of Rishis has been in the eye of storm with terrorist
violence becoming the order of the day. Although the Valley has had
tumultuous history of inside discord and foreign incursions, she has
also brought into the world holy men and women who preached a
humanitarian faith in the homogeneous conduct of people belonging to
dissimilar belief, and a faith that there was one God afar from
sectarian divisions.
The
orthodox Islamic school of thought that came to find its most
dangerous face in Taliban, originated in the peaceful north Indian
town of Deoband, where Hindus and Muslims peaceably co-exist to have
external rhythms of sowing and harvesting. The length of the streets
in this holy town is festooned with shrines to blue-skinned Hindu
Gods, cows, sacred in Hinduism.
In the Kashmir
context, the division is between those who believe in shrines and
those who do not. The Islam practised in Kashmir is Islam as
propagated by the local Sufi order of Silsila-e-Rishiyan, the Muslim
saints of Kashmir, whose progenitor was Sheikh Nooruddin. The Hindu
community of Kashmir reveres Him also. The Sufis worship in shrines
where pre-Islamic practices still survive. In fact, the existence of
Shrines, as distinct from mosques, is seen as a non-Islamic
tradition by the orthodox. Orthodox, and their leaders such as Syed
Ali Geelani, who deprecate worship in shrines, has had to address
gatherings of believers at popular shrines such as Hazratbal.
Kashmiriyat
- cultural-cum-religious ethos of Kashmir - emerged and evolved as
an assimilation of the varied influences from central and west Asia,
the Tibetan highland and from the heartland of India. Drawing on
beliefs and thoughts from dissimilar religious convictions, dogma
and customs and developing its own traditions and a manner of living
that, even today, remain atypical to the Kashmiri people and, more
than all other facets, characterize their distinctiveness and
identity.
Kashmir started a new
epoch in the history with the advent of Hinduism in the second
century B.C with the arrival of Aryans. The commencement of the
third millennium B.C is by and large regarded as the phase when
Buddhist influences acquired traction in Kashmir predominantly in
Ladakh, north of the valley. Kashmiri intellectuals played a pivotal
role in the growth of Buddhism to other parts of the world.
Notwithstanding the arrival of Buddhism, Buddhist royals, centered
in the Valley, persisted the exercise of backing Hindu temples and
revelling Hindu fiestas.
Kashmir was also
receptive to the Mahayana school of Buddhism whose doctrines revolve
round their fundamentalist concepts of Shiva and Shakti. However
scholars also argue that the doctrine of Buddhism consequently faced
a confront from a rejuvenated Shavite Hinduism. The Amarnath cave in
Kashmir, dedicated to Lord Shiva, is representative of the profound
impression that Shavite Hinduism had on the populace of Kashmir –
an influence that the very system of Buddhism encouraged. It was a
variety of reverence that symbolised a spiritual union involving the
disciple and God devoid of ceremonial contemplation. Its increase
resulted not from proliferation but the partaking of the people
themselves. The highly esteemed status of Kashmir as a seat of
learning equalled that of Magadha.
The
arrival of Islam, ensuing from permeation from Central Asia, Persia
and Turkey, saw the waning of Buddhism mainly in the Valley and the
conversion of a sizeable number of populace to the mystic Sufi
school. The Kashmir Valley became the halting place of the caravans
going in either direction. Syed Ali Hamdani from Hamadan in Persia,
an intellectual and Sufi saint, is accepted as the poignant
influence behind the non-violent extend of Islam in Kashmir. The
Kashmiri kinship with Sufi Islam stemmed from the customs of
spirituality that infused the life of people true to Shavite
Hinduism with its stress on the mystic contact linking man with God.
It was in the Valley
that Muslim ascetics instituted the Rishi order, even though the
fact that the notion of a Rishi is unknown to Islam. On the
other hand, Hindu saints did not reticent away from correlating with
Muslim sages. The common goal of both was the realisation of the
self. Sufism was in part a symbol of disapproval, critical of the
codified and institutionalised Islam of the sultanates and
caliphates, analogous to the Shaivite custom, which did not
visualize a ceremonial function for the priestly order. Sufism had
parallels to tantric rituals, which also had influenced the Kashmiri
nation.
These assorted
influences shaped the basis of Kashmiri society and the formation of
an culture of Kashmiriyat. However it needs to be borne in mind that
much before the advent of foreign missionaries to Kashmir, Kashmir
was a land of civilisation and had a well-structured mosaic of
culture. Buddhist age edifices such as the Shah Hamadan Mosque
on the banks of river Jhelum; the Ziyarat Dastgir Sahib in
Khanayar and the Zirat Nund Rishi at Charar-e-Sharif epitomized
the atypical liberal edition of Islam take up by the Kashmiris.
Sufi saints produced a
amalgamation of monotheistic Trikka (the Kashmiri outline of
Shaivite veneration) into the Tawhid; conception of Islam
ensuing in a way of life that welcomed spirituality, conversant to
the doctrine of fundamentalist Islam. The fusion of mystic Trikka
Shaivism and spiritual Sufism guided to the dawn of Rishi belief
in Kashmir analogous to the Hindu theory of Bhakti.
The propagation of
Islam, in this atypical and moderate form, to the people of Kashmir
was the giving of the Rishis. One such saint was Lal Ded. Born to a
Brahmin family in the region of Pampore near Srinagar, this
14th-century saint was drawn towards spirituality from a very young
age. She did not believe in idol worship, sacrifices, and the other
rituals her clique indulged in, nor did she distinguish between a
Hindu and Muslim or the rich and the poor. Through her songs, which
still echo in the Kashmir Valley, Lalla-ded spread the
message of universal brotherhood and fairness before God, quite
diverse from the doctrine of fundamentalist Islam.
There
are some popular allegories in Kashmir concerning Lal Ded’s
relationship with Syed Ali Hamadani and Sheikh Noorudin Noorani.
While it has not been established that she met the former, there is
almost no suspicion articulated by scholars about Her correlation
with Nund Rishi. Sheikh Nooruddin or Nund Rishi inherited her mantle
and is revered to this day by both Muslims and Hindus likewise. True
spiritualists, as they were, their pronounces mostly in doggerel,
accentuate ecumenical philosophy.
The Rishi institution
can be seen in the contemporary Kashmir in post Namaz recital of the
Aurade Fathiya sonnets in Kashmiri, in admiration of the
Prophet; the veneration for Shrines and tombs of saints and Sufis
and the reverence of holy relics; as well as the espousal of a
tolerant form of Islamic theory or philosophy. Kashmiriyat,
of which these customs and rituals form an essential ingredient, is
not restricted simply to the ways of prayer. It permeates the every
day verve of the Kashmiris.
The Sufi order,
distinct from those in conventional Islamic institution permits a
woman complete pronounce in the manner of leading her life and the
conception of a lady being considered less than a man is unfamiliar
to Kashmiris. In Kashmir, contrary to the conformist Islamic
practices, visits to Hindu temples by Muslims and to Shrines by
Hindus are routine. Muslims abide by the Hindu practice of fastening
threads at the yearly Hindu pilgrimage to Amarnath Cave; it is
Muslim families which customarily take care of the Cave.
The character of
co-existence and accord amongst faiths and beliefs, and the
amalgamation of customs and practices of dissimilar religions that
have had their situate in culture, despising fundamentalism, and
fanaticism. The people have departed from the spiritual legacy
bestowed to them by their saints, and thrust the Valley into a scene
of carnage.
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